do you lose your temper with your toddler?

[boglach]

My dd is 2.5 and very loved/cherished

she was an easy baby but my word she is hard work now! i have a ds 5 who didn't sleep as a baby and cried a lot but he was a much quieter and contained as a toddler

she is loud, has terrible table manners, no power of reason and throws herself on the floor in fits of rage frequently about seemingly unavoidable matters

okay i am being a bit tongue and cheek, i know that is pretty standard toddler stuff

but i am losing patience, shouting more and even being rough with her at times

any tips welcome

Oh you could be me! I was rough with my dd today . I had to take a deep breath then apologise to her. She later gave me kisses for the first time in months - rather humbling.

The best advice I ever read was to expend as little energy as possible dealing with negative behavior and as much as possible responding to the positive stuff. So very calm, neutral, even indifferent when dealing with tantrums but very upbeat when they do something you want them to do. It's far easier said then done but it does work.

When my DD gets herself worked up there is no reasoning with her, and no point even trying to get her to calm down straight away.

So I tell her as calmly as I can that I am right here if she needs me, and she can come and have a cuddle once she has calmed down. Then I sit near her and repeat the phrase every now and then.

Eventually she stops yelling and comes over for a cuddle, we have a quick chat about what was making her feel cross and then we try and move on. Sometimes though, especially when she is tired, we have tantrum after tantrum and there's not much to do except wait it out.

But yes I do lose my rag with her on occasion, and always regret it as it never serves any purpose except to get her (and me) even more wound up!

The book Toddler Taming is really good, helped me a lot when DD1 turned evil overnight :)

oh god yes, he's actually pretty good as far as 2y olds go but when he insists on slamming the door or switching the switches or whatever.....I try hard to take a deep breath, down on his level etc but occasionally if he wakes up DD or throws something that hits me its very hard not to yell and I do - or more often use my "teacher voice" not loud exactly but very stern. He sort of crumples. Its not pleasant but I think sometimes it does need to be done.

i posted about my 3.5yr old recently and got a lovely link to this article:

Disequilibrium is the half year period before a child?s birthday, (in this instance from 3 1/2 until 4 years old) where children are confused, emotional, temperamental and may have difficulty completing tasks that they previously have easily accomplished. They then move into phases of equilibrium where they seem to have ?got it all together?.

i loose my temper all the time, dh has just had some time off work and i'm getting more time to myself to go out and do something so things are much better. i'm trying to be more understanding and loving with my kids and it seems to be paying off.